RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Electronic Textiles as Disruptive Designs: Supporting and Challenging Maker Activities in Schools
JF Harvard Educational Review
JO herp
FD Harvard Educational Press
SP 532
OP 556
DO 10.17763/haer.84.4.46m7372370214783
VO 84
IS 4
A1 Kafai, Yasmin
A1 Fields, Deborah
A1 Searle, Kristin
YR 2014
UL http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/84/4/532.abstract
AB Electronic textiles are a part of the increasingly popular maker movement that champions existing do-it-yourself activities. As making activities broaden from Maker Faires and fabrication spaces in children's museums, science centers, and community organizations to school classrooms, they provide new opportunities for learning while challenging many current conventions of schooling. In this article, authors Yasmin Kafai, Deborah Fields, and Kristin Searle consider one disruptive area of making: electronic textiles. The authors examine high school students’ experiences making e-textile designs across three workshops that took place over the course of a school year and discuss individual students’ experiences making e-textiles in the context of broader findings regarding themes of transparency, aesthetics, and gender. They also examine the role of e-textiles as both an opportunity for, and challenge in, breaking down traditional barriers to computing.